Ah yeah, I have an E46 M3 for tulips and giggles, but would like something newer for once (the newest car I've ever owned was made in 2008). Also appear to have accumulated six cars in total, so one of the existing ones will have to go!

Good effort, I thought with my 2 cars, 1 van and 1 motorbike it was time to lose a car, maybe not then

Exactly, I'm wondering when the 100% FYA for ULEV will be abolished completely, they already dropped it to 50g/km from April '18

It's very odd how the government is doing it - but actually things are due to suddenly get much better from 2020 after getting progressively worse before that. Specifically, fully electric cars and hybrids with at least 130 milles electric range will carry only 2% BIK from 2020 onwards. See here:

I'm not sure what the BMW hybrids' electric ranges are, but FWIW, even the mainstream electric cars like Nissan Leaf and soon Tesla model 3 will have electric range well over 130 miles in the 2018+ versions. I expect real world ranges of 200 to 300+ miles will be very common by 2020.

Of course this all depends if the Tories will honour these rates; they do have a history of cutting anything envionmentally progressive to the point it's not viable. A mainstream decent electric car like the Nissan Leaf (and soon Tesla Model 3) costing around £30k is not worth buying through the company for a standard rate dividend payer, while for a higher rate payer it's not worth except on low business mileage.

But on expensive cars it's easily worth getting through the company, and I'd bet on it staying that way. Tories only recently announced the 2020 changes I mentioned above, and even if Labour comes into power they'll likely adopt environmentally progressive policies which will benefit everyone.

This reminds me of when solar panel incentives were cut a few years ago, to the point it was no longer viable for anybody to invest in them. At the time I looked at other green investments out of interest, and the only one that was still viable on a pure cost basis was ground source heating. Funnily enough, it was by far the most expensive option with a capital cost of around £20k, and also required a large south facing garden of the a size that relatively few people will have. But for anybody who had the funds and the garden space, there were annual incentives worth a guaranteed profit of around 30% IIRC on a £20k investment, over something like 7 years - even before the energy savings were considered!

Great to see see the Tories are helping (the top 5%) to make environmentally progressive and economically sound investments

@Zylon well, I guess you could argue (I'm not) that the top 5% will have proportionally a much larger carbon foot print that those lower down the income scale. Those people are far more likely to be running large cars, (and more than one) live in a large centrally heated house, perhaps with a swimming pool, obviously consume much more electricity and gas and generally have far higher per capita spending on non essentials. So, economically, on a bang per green buck basis it is probably a reasonable use of scarce resources?

@Zylon well, I guess you could argue (I'm not) that the top 5% will have proportionally a much larger carbon foot print that those lower down the income scale. Those people are far more likely to be running large cars, (and more than one) live in a large centrally heated house, perhaps with a swimming pool, obviously consume much more electricity and gas and generally have far higher per capita spending on non essentials. So, economically, on a bang per green buck basis it is probably a reasonable use of scarce resources?

In some cases I would agree. I know what you're getting at, and I'm not the type who will criticise any progressive incentive which happens to benefit the wealthy more than others. It's unavoidable that early adopters of certain technologies will often be wealthier, and if government incentives are the only way to develop the positive technologies to fall then I fully support it.

However, in the case of green energy subsidies, no it wasn't the best bang for buck in any sense. The energy savings were of a similar magnitude but the solar panel incentives were worth a few hundred pounds per year, while ground source heat pump were worth several thousand. When the incentive is so strong that it provides a strong profit above what's already a sound investment in its own right, it's just a taxpayer funded giveaway.